Edwards' problem was that he made the smug set of American liberalism extremely uncomfortable. He showed them what they should really be thinking about and what they might do about it. And they didn't like it. Far better to relax in the self-righteousness of choosing between a Harvard Law School black and a Yale Law School woman.

And so, once again, the Democratic Party drifts further away from what once made it worth bragging about.

negatives are sky-high at 46 percent, which is unelectable territory, while Obama's are just 32 percent. Well, I submit Obama's aren't high because most people know little or nothing about him, including his starry-eyed supporters.

there was always bad blood between LBJ and the Kennedys, it's not surprising Ted Kennedy got pissed off with Hillary Clinton's remarks and endorsed her loser rival instead.

The rotten truth is if JFK hadn't died, we probably wouldn't have gotten much in the way of civil rights legislation passed for years. LBJ spearheaded it in part in honor of JFK, but he knew he lost the South for the Democrats for decades as a result.

Although no Republican candidate has won even 40 percent of the vote in any of the initial contests and the vast majority of convention delegates have yet to be selected, the media immediately proclaimed McCain the frontrunner and near-certain nominee.

Favorable media coverage and editorial support have played a major role in McCain’s primary victories, particularly in overcoming the huge financial advantage enjoyed by Romney, a venture capitalist who is funding much of his campaign from his half billion dollar personal fortune.

Headlines in the press Wednesday were openly adulatory. Typical were the Washington Post front page—“After Romney’s Barrage, McCain Stands Tall”—and the Los Angeles Times—“The GOP could have its unifier.”

Republican voters have no choice either. They have to pick McCain whether they like him or not.

Yeah, it really IS about getting Bill back in the White House through the backdoor; unfortunately for him, the average American voter will see through this obvious ploy and reject the Democratic Party for the White House this fall.

Both Bozarths also blamed the mainstream media for shunting the former North Carolina senator to the side.

"The media essentially tried to promote a race between race and gender instead of focusing on the ideas and the platforms of the people that have been competing for the nomination," Mr. Bozarth said, alluding to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

And like his wife, Mr. Bozarth said Edwards did more than just talk a populous message.

"He lived his principles," he said, noting his work on addressing poverty, "and the rest of them didn't."

this post from Democratic Underground although some of the responses are typical of people with heads in their asses.

Republicans are being manipulated in the same way. Despite their widespread disgust over their candidates, they are being force fed John McCain:

THE TIME HAS COME TO ADMIT WE ARE IN DEEP TROUBLE

About these advertisementsEdited on Thu Jan-31-08 09:44 AM by ClericJohnPrestonAnd by doing so, ask what the appropriate response is to what is happening in our Nation right now.

I have been dancing around this idea throughout many thread responses. Others here with an astute eye have also seen the same things that I see.

What do we do as good citizens, if we learn that our votes and our freedoms, are merely phantoms, illusory beliefs, as we are really operating under a strictly controlled environment?

Look at our "choices":

McCainRomneyHillaryObama

Barring yet some other unforseen event, the four above represent the "pool" of talent Americans will be asked to choose from for POTUS in nine months.

While there is certainly experience and talent in the Democratic choices, look at who couldn't make the cut on the Democratic side:

John EdwardsJoe BidenChris DoddDennis KucinichBill Richardson

See a pattern there? Besides all being immensely talented and offering policies and programs that speak to a REAL, not FIGURATIVE, "CHANGE", they have all been thoroughly silenced in this campaign.It is my opinion, that the the two candidates left standing, are the only two who assure the continuation of the status quo.

What status quo?

The CORPORATE domination of the United States.

We are in a stranglehold over our society, held by a cadre of Corporations, who will not permit their dissolution, or even a weakening of that hold.

Yes, our politics now proves what I have always said.

There is no viable reason I can discern, for John Edwards to have suddenly left the political arena. NONE! He has cash, support, delegates, and everything necessary to play deal-maker at a brokered convention.

Add to that Obama's soon to be REZKO affair being highlighted and there is truly, some strong questions that demand answer.

WHY EXACTLY IS JOHN EDWARDS LEAVING THIS RACE???? EVEN JRE DID NOT EXPLAIN IN HIS TERSE REMARKS, ANY REAL RATIONALE FOR THAT DECISION.

If we don't have any freedom of choice, but the ILLUSION OF CHOICE, what are we to do? You can be sure that all of Bush's rendition plans, the eavesdropping, have all been constructed as contingency plans for anyone that gets too interested in asking these questions.

Afraid yet? You should be. If John Edwards can be silenced, we all can be silenced. If we are silenced, it has been by people who don't hold elective office.

Do you just want to be mere uninformed cattle, believing they we have a part in our Government? Can you even see that this is happening right under our noses, without any outcry, while Corporations control all of the messages and ideas?

I, for one, would like some answers. But, we will never get them , if we all acquiesce and fail to insist on an answer.

Even if you support Hillary or Obama and are happy with these choices, you ought to be concerned when a viable candidate leaves the stage, as John did, AND NOT ONE TV COMMENTATOR, ANYWHERE, ASKED , "WHY"? WHY, is the most obvious question, yet it was never discussed, only accepted.

So, as an experiment, ask yourselves, "why"?

Please, all smarmy non-thinking responses are only additional distractions, we don't need in this conversation.

OF COURSE Edwards was forced out. What, with him rising in the polls nationally, with him being able to get delegates to force a brokered convention, with a major ad buy in the works, with campaign stops arranged all over Super Tuesday states, and suddenly he withdraws?

just hung up from a conference call with supporters of the Edwards campaign. Both John and Elizabeth spoke.

Some of my notes:

Elizabeth Edwards introduced John:

"...I felt in 2004 that we left the campaign without leaving a mark... not this time... a lot of the policies on the table are the result of John..."

John Edwards:

"We were just and righteous and correct in what we tried to do for the country..."

Decision not about money, wants to unite the Party, believes McCain has the Rep nom locked up. "My withdrawal was not money driven... had nothing at all to do with money... it was based on my belief that continued battle was not going to serve our country well... when it's a two person race someone emerges quickly... it's very clear to me that McCain is the Republican nominee..."

"...I wish you could understand how hard this is inside of me..."

Poverty will be the issue on which Edwards will continue to push for concessions. "I have not endorsed anyone... I pressed them (Obama and Clinton in conversation in the last few days) on details of what they would do about poverty... we have very detailed commitments from both of them... both of them have given me their word to do certain things if elected, at the convention... "

No endorsement before Tuesday. "I will be meeting with each of them... there is no chance it will happen (any endorsement) before Tuesday, or even after... "

Take a breather and don't make any support decision yet. "I'm counseling you all to keep your powder dry... to take time, take a deep breath, don't be in a hurry (in choosing who to support)..."

"It's impossible to know what tomorrow holds..."

That's what I wrote down and I think it covers the key items discussed.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

I am watching MSNBC, and the pimping for John McCain is horrible. Oh sure, people like Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan aren't crazy about the guy, but they have nowhere else to go if McCain gets the nomination, which seems almost certain.

Now the gossip is who will be the running mate. I am betting Huckabee for the religious right vote, but some of the commentators seem to think the deeply-flawed Giuliani could be the pick.

I think I am right.

In any case, the media bias is why Clinton and Obama have utterly no chance at all of beating McCain in the fall.

Barbaro will be the first horse in history to have his remains placed on the grounds of the historic track. His ashes will be interred outside Churchill's entrance gate in a large elevated space enclosed by bricks. The site will also include a life-size bronze statue commissioned by the Jacksons and loaned to the track as part of the official memorial site.

Roy Jackson said Churchill Downs was the best place to honor the colt, who won the Derby by a dominating 6-1/2 lengths before being injured in the Preakness Stakes (gr. I).

The Plan didn’t call for sacrificing Obama’s political fame so much as allowing it to attenuate and bringing his ego into line with his role as a senator in the minority party. The hope was that questions like the one posed by a journalist during Obama’s first week in the Senate—“What is your place in history?”—would dissipate, allowing him to focus on the interests of Illinois and build toward bigger things. Nothing foreclosed larger ambitions. “Would I tell you that it never came up in any discussion, anytime, anywhere—that sometime in the future, Barack Obama would run for national office?” Obama’s chief adviser, David Axelrod, asked me. “If I told you that, you’d turn your tape recorder off, and we’d end this conversation, because you’d think everything I told you was a lie.” But in early 2005, the context of those discussions was at least 10 years in the future.

Initially, Obama did try to avoid publicity, turning down repeated requests to appear on national television, as well as invitations to speak before Democratic groups. “We wanted to be mindful of our place,” Robert Gibbs, his spokesman, told me. Even on the issue of Iraq, which dominated 2005, Obama, an opponent of the invasion from the beginning, passed up the chance to speak out. “He could have been the moral voice, the moral authority on Iraq,” one of Obama’s closest advisers told me. “But he was just a freshman senator. It would have been presumptuous of him to take that lead.” In January of 2006, appearing on Meet the Press, Obama reiterated his intention to serve a full six-year term.

But something changed—and fairly rapidly. Obama diverged from the Clinton path and decided to challenge the former first lady for the presidency.

Obama is a wonderful backstabber. Ask Alice Palmer about what a great guy he is.

The groundswell for Obama from the right-wing media has a self-interested subtext: Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, and a multitude of conservative pundits calculate, rightly or wrongly, that the Illinois senator, with only three years in national politics, would be a weaker opponent than Hillary Clinton in the November election.

...

There is no doubt that many of those voting for Obama believe they are dealing a blow to the race-based politics which have been the foundation for Republican Party electoral victories, particularly in the South, for the past three decades.

But the fundamental divide in American life is class, not race: the colossal social gulf between the vast majority who work for a living and struggle to survive—black, white, Hispanic, Native American and Asian—and the financial aristocracy, the top one percent (or less) of the population, who dominate the economy and political structure of the United States.

We know this, but the WSWS, just like the media as a whole, hates John Edwards' guts.

And:

This was a reference to Obama’s by-now-notorious comment on Ronald Reagan, first reported in an interview with a Reno, Nevada newspaper during that state’s caucus campaign. The Democratic candidate went beyond noting that Reagan’s presidency marked a qualitative change in American politics—something no objective analyst would dispute—to praise Reagan as someone who “put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. He tapped into what people were already feeling, which is, we want clarity, we want optimism, we want, you know, a return to that sense of dynamism and, you know, entrepreneurship that had been missing.”

This paean to Reagan demonstrates that Obama embraces one of the stupidest nostrums of official American politics: the alleged political genius of the former movie actor turned ad pitchman for big business. The Clintons have made their own comments along the same lines. Indeed, the thrust of Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign and of the right-wing Democratic Leadership Council, which he headed at the time, was to revamp the Democratic Party along the lines of the new political universe supposedly created by Reagan.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Last week, Hillary Clinton attacked Obama for his association with alleged influence-peddler Tony Rezko. If Obama had dealt with the Rezko issue forthrightly long ago, it might rank in public memory with Clinton's remarkable success in cattle futures.

Instead, as we've said, Obama has been too self-exculpatory. His assertion in network TV interviews last week that nobody had indications Rezko was engaging in wrongdoing strains credulity: Tribune stories linked Rezko to questionable fundraising for Gov. Rod Blagojevich in 2004 -- more than a year before the adjacent home and property purchases by the Obamas and the Rezkos.

One more time, Senator:

You need to divulge all there is to know about that relationship. Until you do, the journalistic scrubbing and opposition research will intensify. You should have recognized Rezko as a political seducer of young talent. But given that you've not been accused of any crime or ethical breach, your Rezko history is not a deal-breaker.

And because of the extensive connections between the two and because of the upcoming Rezko trial, one must ask why Obama decided to run with this entire cemetery of skeletons in his closet.

Is it because Oprah and Michelle fed him so much shit he could be president that despite his numerous shortcomings he actually believed it? Is it because he was suckered by a mendacious media that has pumped him up since his rather dull keynote address at the 2004 convention by anointing him the new "star" of the Democratic Party? Is it because the DNC was hellbent on pimping for him and Hillary Clinton so the party wouldn't have to worry about raising money from financial elites and corporate entities by going all out to destroy John Edwards and Obama couldn't say no? Or, if one is truly into conspiracies, is he actually a closet Republican who is in national politics solely to split Democrats and make it easy for the GOP to win in November? Or, more likely, is he an unwitting ringer to be the George McGovern of 2008 and is being used by the GOP-loving media as a punching bag for John McCain?

Once a dictator, always a dictator: Suharto of Indonesia has died at at the age of 86.

Unlike Garbo or Madonna, Suharto didn't have any other name to speak of. It was synonymous with dictator._____

Gordon B. Hinckley, 97, head of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, died this evening. He had been president of the church since 1995, when he was a mere 84 years old.

Snip:

With the shrewdness of a politician, Hinckley downplayed the more controversial aspects of LDS history. He welcomed the world to Utah for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games, promising everyone they could get a drink here and accepted one of America's highest honors - the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He highlighted Mormon commonality with other Christians, forging alliances with other faith groups while scolding LDS Church members for being too clannish, self-righteous and unfriendly to their neighbors. "This church has grown into a great worldwide organization affecting for good the lives of people in more than 140 nations," Hinckley told The New York Times in 1995. "You can't, you don't, build out of pessimism or cynicism. You look with optimism, work with faith, and things happen."

Christian Brando, 49, oldest son of the late Marlon Brando from his marriage to Anna Kashfi, has died.

He's probably best known for having been convicted of manslaughter in the death of his half-sister's lover, Dag Drollet, in 1990.

Cheyenne Brando, as we know, committed suicide a few years later.

Here is more about his death. Brando died of complications from pneumonia.

Snip:

As for Christian, he dropped out of school in 11th grade and began drinking and using LSD, tried a variety of jobs including welder and tree trimmer and lived for a time in Alaska, piloting a barge for a fish processor during the summers. But he mostly lived for years with his father in Brando's hilltop estate.

It was there that on May 16, 1990, Christian Brando confronted Drollet after Cheyenne confided that he had been beating her.

"I did not go into that room to kill Dag Drollet," Christian Brando told The Times in 1991. "I just wanted to scare him."

Brando said that as he turned to leave, his arm still outstretched, Drollet tried to grab the gun and it went off.

"I just sat there and watched the life go out of this guy," Brando said.

In the interview with The Times, Brando said that later revelations about Cheyenne's mental health made him later question whether she was ever beaten by Drollet.

Maila Nurmi, best remembered as television hostess Vampira, died in her sleep January 10 at the age of 86. She also appeared in the bad movie classic, Plan 9 From Outer Space. She was a friend of James Dean's.

The Obama campaign says it has given away more than $85,000 in Rezko-linked contributions since Rezko was indicted on federal fraud and extortion charges in the fall of 2006.

An ABCNews.com review, however, has identified an additional $100,000 in contributions made to Obama from Rezko's associates that have not been returned, including $19,500 in contributions from Rezko's wife and employees of Rezko's business enterprises. The ABCNews.com review includes individuals who have been linked to Rezko in news reports, court documents and public records.

Other news organizations have reviewed Obama's campaign finance records and have also found Rezko-linked contributions that are more than double what the campaign has publicly acknowledged. The Chicago Sun-Times, which published its review last June, found that "Obama has collected at least $168,308 from Rezko and his circle," and earlier this week the Los Angeles Times reported that it had found that Rezko and his associates had given "Obama more than $200,000 in donations since 1995."

Good riddance. I hope he gets beat in the primary. All of this showboating shit and nothing to show for it gets rather old.

Of all of the candidates I met in person, both Democrats and Republicans, Kucinich was the one I didn't care for.

He thought he was hot shit, and he wouldn't even make time to meet and greet with people when he and Elizabeth were in Reno last month. The excuse he and his handlers gave was he had a radio interview, but other candidates FOUND the time regardless.

The announcement is supposed to be official tomorrow. He'll probably endorse Rezko Obama then.

decides to be sane and endorsed John Edwards for the Democratic presidential nomination.

We supported Edwards four years ago in the Democratic primary because he offered a real opportunity to bridge a nation that has been divided along class lines. That need has only increased under the current administration, and we think Edwards, with his populist message, offers a change for the better.

at the Taylor Marsh website (correcting that "Democrat" Party typo, which is embarrassing):

Obama is dividing up the anti-Clinton vote and diverting votes away from the person who CAN win the GE, John Edwards. That is his WHOLE PURPOSE FOR RUNNING. Obama won't get the nomination, not even close. But by God, the powers-that-be in the Democratic Party are going to make damned sure Edwards doesn't get it, either.

The question that must be asked is why the national party leadership is insistent we lose in the fall by not allowing voters to pick a winner. Why is it John Edwards is being marginalized by the bigwigs of his own party (to say nothing of the media)? The answer is easy to explain: It is because the party leadership would rather lose the White House than lose the support of corporations and financial elites who have contributed tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars to the Democratic Party in recent years. These days the Democratic Party is almost on par with the Republicans in terms of fundraising. The bigwigs are fearful that any economic populist candidate, no matter how appealing and electable to the electorate, could shut off that flow of cash. Clinton and Obama, as unelectable as they are in the GE, DO provide tons of cash for the party because of their "star power," and this cash helps Democrats downticket.

It is the ONLY explanation I can see for the party establishment to be so unsupportive of John Edwards while at the same time committing political suicide in the fall. No other explanation makes sense.

A review by the Los Angeles Times shows that Rezko, a businessman long active in Chicago politics, played a deeper role in Obama's political and financial biography than the candidate has acknowledged.

For example, Rezko, his employees and business associates -- such as his consultants, lawyers and their families -- have provided Obama more than $200,000 in donations since 1995, helping fuel his rapid ascent in Illinois and U.S. politics. Although Rezko is not Obama's largest bundler, he was there at the start and at critical moments along the way, helping support the candidate when few others were.

In addition to being a campaign benefactor, Rezko also surfaced when Obama and his wife purchased their house on Chicago's South Side in 2005. On the day the Obamas bought their house, Rezko's wife, Rita, bought an adjacent lot from the same sellers, part of which Obama later bought back.

Rita Rezko's purchase, at the $625,000 asking price, came just as the Obamas successfully bid in a slow market to buy the house for $300,000 below the asking price, according to the Chicago Tribune.

The Obamas secured their brick Georgian Revival-style home on June 15, 2005, for $1,650,000. Later, the Chicago Tribune reported, Rezko paid $14,000 to build a fence, required by city ordinance, along the new property line.

Obama says there was nothing improper in these transactions. The housing deal came after it was known that Rezko was under scrutiny by federal authorities.

seems to believe it was a good thing the only two Democratic candidates running aired out all of their disagreements Monday night. That way, they provided many of the soundbites necessary to be destroyed by the Republicans in the fall.

abolished its presidential primary back in 1981, and the caucuses have always been dismal failures, especially for Democrats with their paltry showings.

I KNEW there had been none in all of the years I have lived here, or I would have voted in the state's primaries. I moved here in 1984, a couple of years after the caucuses started.

Naturally Sheila Leslie, an Obama supporter, thinks the caucuses are just wonderful. Never mind they are inherently undemocratic. The caucuses deny Saturday workers and those with religious beliefs marking Saturday observances the right to participate.

more about the two-person debate last night I mistakenly took for a three-person debate:

Clinton's reference was to a Chicago Sun-Times investigation that revealed legal work Obama did for a major political patron, Rezko, currently facing trial on federal fraud charges. Obama took campaign donations from Rezko even as Rezko's low-income housing empire was collapsing, leaving many African-American families in buildings with problems," the Sun-Times reported. Obama replied that he did only about five hours of work for Rezko, and Clinton did not bring it up again.

am watching the SC debate, and it appears that so far Obama has had a major, major meltdown.

Hillary Clinton hasn't done much better. She and Obama went after each other for quite a bit of the time, with her even mentioning Rezko with the "slumlord" remark. Wolf Blitzer did ask Obama about it later, but Obama really didn't answer it satisfactorily.

Rezko will kill him off politically. I think he's teetering right now.

Edwards clearly has come out as the adult here, with good answers all the way. Hopefully it plays well in South Carolina. The audience seems to like him the best.

may be more ready for a black president than a female one, but they are not going to be ready for a black president tainted by having an association with a mob-connected slumlord, and they won't vote for a female candidate who is married to a term-limited former president.

for Bill Clinton to live down his nominating speech for Mike Dukakis back in 1988.

It was a disaster. People were walking out, making "cutting" gestures with their hands, anything to make him shut up.

I saw that speech, but I didn't tape it, damn it. I did many other speeches at the convention but not that one.

Snip:

Conventions can make stars, as Mario Cuomo knows, or dim them, as Mr. Clinton now knows. The jokes were already rife about the speech, 33-minutes long and less-than-inspiring, that caused delegates to scream ''Wrap it up!'' Democratic officials, who had joked that their giant podium was ''the thing that ate the hall,'' were now clucking about ''the speech that ate Bill Clinton.''

But Mr. Clinton, a Rhodes scholar in his fourth term as Governor who considered running for President himself, was not about to go into what he called ''a deep funk.'' He immediately swung into damage control, trooping around the huge press complex, giving interviews about the rhetorical debacle. With rueful charm, he insisted that Mr. Dukakis loved the speech, and he blamed the restless delegates for stretching it out. ''The yellers,'' he complained, ''took half my speech time.''

Edwards is there to pick up delegates. And I strongly suspect Obama will not make it to the convention with the Rezko trial gearing up. Edwards NEEDS Obama's delegates, and I believe that is the "deal" if any that has been struck between the two.

a Democratic debate tonight in South Carolina. I know Edwards will do fine, but it'll all be about Clinton and Obama.

African American voters in SC should know better:

What appears to have changed is Obama's electability.

"There's been a huge shift among African-American Democrats from Clinton to Obama. African-American Democrats used to be reluctant to support Obama because they didn't think a black man could be elected. Then Obama won Iowa and nearly won New Hampshire. Now they believe," says Bill Schneider, CNN's senior political analyst.

I'll repost Cuomo's 1992 nominating speech at the Democratic National Convention, which is the best speech I ever heard in my entire life. Bill Clinton couldn't live up to that if he tried:

It was great, great, great.

I found this funny tidbit:

Nothing captured the depth of Democrats' desire for victory in 1992 more than the speech of New York Gov. Mario Cuomo. Arguably the best orator in America today, Cuomo swallowed his personal disdain for Clinton and gave an impassioned speech on behalf of the Democratic party, change and Clinton (in that order). One Chicago newspaperman said half-jokingly, "Imagine the speech Mario would have given if he liked the guy."

Mario Cuomo's famous "Tale of Two Cities" keynote speech at the 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco, one of the all-time greatest speeches, but I'll post it here again:

THIS is oratory. The man should have been president just on this speech alone. He was the only person in the country who could have beaten Ronald Reagan, but Cuomo believed he wasn't good enough to be president. Our loss, indeed.

Try to persuade me Barack Obama is remotely in this league, and I've heard him in person twice.

Mario Cuomo is the standard by which ALL orators in world history should be judged against. He composes speeches, not writes them, as symphonies, with perfect timing, cadence, and delivery. He is the Beethoven of oratory.

Obama fancies himself as the second coming of Martin Luther King, Jr., it was only appropriate he spoke on his official birthday weekend. He spoke at a church yesterday.

However, if you, like I, remember the real thing, you will want to watch the celebrated "I Have a Dream" speech of 1963 instead:

The Wikipedia article about this speech nails why "I Have a Dream" is so great, both in content and delivery:

Widely hailed as a masterpiece of rhetoric, King's speech resembles the style of a Black Baptist sermon. It appeals to such iconic and widely respected sources as the Bible and invokes the United States Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the United States Constitution. Through the rhetorical device of allusion, King makes use of phrases and language from important cultural texts for his own rhetorical purposes. Early in his speech King alludes to Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address by saying "Five score years ago..." Biblical allusions are also prevalent. For example, King alludes to Psalm 30:5[4] in the second stanza of the speech. He says in reference to the abolition of slavery articulated in the Emancipation Proclamation, "It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity." Another Biblical allusion is found in King's tenth stanza: "No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." This is an allusion to Amos 5:24.[5] King also quotes from Isaiah 40:4 — "I have a dream that every valley shall be exalted.."

Anaphora, the repetition of a phrase at the beginning of sentences, is a rhetorical tool employed throughout the speech. An example of anaphora is found early as King urges his audience to seize the moment: "Now is the time..." is repeated four times in the sixth stanza. The most widely cited example of anaphora is found in the often quoted phrase "I have a dream..." which is repeated eight times as King paints a picture of an integrated and unified America for his audience. Other occasions when King used anaphora include "One hundred years later," "We can never be satisfied," "With this faith," and "Let freedom ring."

It remains a chilling speech to hear after all of these years. King wasn't as great an orator as Mario Cuomo, arguably the best American orator of the 20th century and maybe in American history, but King was at the top of his game here. He was great.

Obama will never be in that league. People who call him a great orator wouldn't know oratory if it bit them in the ass.

"I'll tell you exactly what I told him: I'm totally opposed to Michael Bloomberg as an independent candidate for president, and I am a great fan of Michael Bloomberg.

"Michael Bloomberg has been a great entrepreneur, he's a great mayor and he'd be a great philanthropist, and I'd hate to see a future entry in the encyclopedia: 'Michael Bloomberg, great spoiler.' He can't win, but he could very likely defeat the Democratic nominee."

Hess' reasoning is very simple: Although some polls show Bloomberg drawing from both Republican and Democratic voters, the mayor's strength lies in blue states such as California, New York and Illinois.

"He's not going to do well in Alabama, Mississippi and Wyoming. He's not going to take away from the Republican base. What are you left with? I worry about it," said Hess.

In response, the Clinton campaign said in a statement: “We understand Senator Obama is frustrated by his loss in Nevada but facts are facts. Senator Obama’s allies in Nevada engaged in strong-arm tactics and intimidation against our supporters and his record against the war has been inconsistent.”

EXCLUSIVE: OBAMA RIPS INTO BILL CLINTON MONDAY DURING ABC INTERVIEW WITH 'GOOD MORNING AMERICA' HOST ROBIN ROBERTS... SAYS HE FEELS LIKE HE RUNNING AGAINST BOTH CLINTONS... Bill 'has taken his advocacy on behalf of his wife to a level that I think is pretty troubling. He continues to make statements that are not supported by the facts. Whether it's about my record of opposition to the war in Iraq or our approach to organizing in Las Vegas. This has become a habit and one of the things that we're gonnna have to do is to directly confront Bill Clinton when he's making statements that are not factually accurate'... DEVELOPING....

It sounds as if Obama is desperate.

I think he would be better served if he started defending himself against any fallout from the Rezko trial.

Actress Suzanne Pleshette, 70, who was on practically every television show during the 1960s and was best known for being on The Bob Newhart Show, has died.

She suffered from cancer for a long time. The apparent cause of death was respiratory failure. Her husband, Tom Poston, had died several months earlier._____

Veteran character actor Allan Melvin, 84, died last Thursday. He died of cancer.

Like Suzanne Pleschette, Melvin was in many, many television shows, including regular roles on The Phil Silvers Show (he did commentary for the recent DVD release of the series) and Archie Bunker's Place._____

Singer-songwriter John Stewart, 68, has died. He was a member of the Kingston Trio. His best-known composition was "Daydream Believer," one of the Monkees' best songs and a number one hit in 1967.

I don't even want to get started getting that song in my head.

Forget it. There is no use in fighting it:

Cheer up, sleepy jean.Oh, what can it mean.To a daydream believerAnd a homecoming queen.

The allegations against Rezko that involve Obama are contained in one paragraph of a 78-page document filed last month in which prosecutors outline their corruption and fraud case against Rezko, who was also a key money man for Gov. Blagojevich and other politicians.

Rezko is set to go to trial Feb. 25. The revelation that Obama’s name could come up in court is a political headache he doesn’t need as he heads into a round of primaries that are likely to determine his party’s nomination for president.

Obama is not named in the Dec. 21 court document. But a source familiar with the case confirmed that Obama is the unnamed “political candidate” referred to in a section of the document that accuses Rezko of orchestrating a scheme in which a firm hired to handle state teacher pension investments first had to pay $250,000 in “sham” finder’s fees. From that money, $10,000 was donated to Obama’s successful run for the Senate in the name of a Rezko business associate, according to the court filing and the source.

He doesn't even have to be indicted in this case. Just the association is enough to taint Obama and render him unelectable on that score alone.

bicker over the final delegate count in Nevada, but if the Edwards supporters were smart, they would have volunteered to become delegates to their county and state conventions regardless if he had viability in their individual precincts.

We had a lot of people turn up as well who were in the wrong precinct, but what I did was got on the phone right away with the Dems office and they were really good about giving out the right one. People were all able to get to where they belonged I think largely because we were right on it. The only problem we had was two people left after the final count of attendees and vialbility was determined..we lost two, so we read off the list and found that two people really were missing...(turned out they had to go to work...I won't comment on how I feel the caucus system disenfranchises people!). The only thing this hurt was it may have lost Clinton a delelgate. Obama got 3, Clinton 1, and Edwards 1. Kucininch had 7, Undecidecd had 2, so they all went to other groups, except for one Kucinich. Over all in went pretty well...a little chaotic as we tried to make sure we had the rules right! Fun, but I think a primary so much more fair!

Saturday, January 19, 2008

You see, there is a three-point plan for the GOP to retain power in the fall. Plan A is to marginalize by far the most electable Democratic candidate, John Edwards, by enlisting the media's help, hoping the voters will fall for it (unfortunately, many do).

Then, with Edwards out of the way, work on Plan B, which is to try and get Barack Obama the nomination and therefore not have to resort to anything other than the usual smears to get a 50-state blowout in the fall.

But if Obama falters, which is probable, put into operation Plan C in wrecking Hillary Clinton's chances by encouraging a third-party run by Mike Bloomberg. Given the fact Clinton is very unpopular with many Democrats, Bloomberg could siphon literally millions of votes from her, votes she desperately needs to even be competitive with the likely GOP presidential nominee, John McCain.

All three of these scenarios are horrible, but one or more of these is sure to happen.

Chapel Hill, North Carolina – John Edwards for President campaign manager, former Congressman David Bonior, released the following statement about today's Nevada caucus results.

"Congratulations to Senator Clinton for her win in Nevada. Our campaign is very grateful to all those who demonstrated the loyalty and dedication to stand up for John Edwards in the face of very difficult circumstances and long odds, including our brothers and sisters in Nevada from the Carpenters, Steelworkers, Transport Workers, and Communications Workers of America.

"John Edwards is the underdog in this campaign, facing two $100 million candidates. But that is nothing compared to the real underdogs in our country – working men and women, middle class families, and all those who have no voice in Washington.

"John Edwards is in this race to fight for the real underdogs and to make sure the voices of the American people are heard in Washington, not the special interests. That's why he's the only candidate in this race who has never taken a dime from PACs or Washington lobbyists; the only candidate who will ban corporate lobbyists from his White House; and the only candidate who is honest enough to say we are in a fight for our country and we need to take on the special interests if we are going to have a country that works for hard-working families and the middle class.

"The race to the nomination is a marathon and not a sprint, and we're committed to making sure the voices of all the voters in the remaining 47 states are heard. The nomination won't be decided by win-loss records, but by delegates, and we're ready to fight for every delegate. Saving the middle class is going to be an epic battle, and that's a fight John Edwards is ready for."

Hi All, it was really intereating. Our group came out with the best deal we could get for the time being. I was in Sparks precinct 6108. There were less than 100 people. We had 7 Kucinich (staunchly so) and 8 Edwards people (staunchly so). Worked out the best we could. Closed togeher to form undecided. We got 2 delegates, so we each took one, and will go to the next level with one uncommitted delegate where we hope to meet up with other uncommitted. I have to look up to see if we can do that again at the next level if we dont have enough Kucinich votes to be viable again. We did have a problem that we are going to protest. The rules say if a person does not live in the precinct they cannot caucus at that precinct. Since registration was allowed at the last minute, anyone who actually lived in the precinct could register and vote legally. I am 67, blind in one eye, cant see out of the other. I received a precinct card with my correct present address, but the wrong precinct which I knew was the wrong precinct. It was in Reno. I landed at my correct precinct. I registered a change of address at the last minute legally. We had several people come in who said they didnt know where to caucus, They were allowed to stay. None of these lost souls were from Richardson, Gravel, Biden, Dodd, Edwards or Kucinich. They were from Clinton and Obama. So we are protesting that. We want a review of the addresses given to the registrar, and if the addresses were wrong, those votes should be discounted. It really is up to the voter to get themselves to the correct precinct. And if you are confused, start early enough to get it straightened out before caucus. If we can get the votes discounted, it wont change our delegate count, but will change the mathematical numbers. There was a discrepancy on the first ballot. AND guess who turned in more votes to the chair? Obama and Clinton. When we had the body count, that is when the discrepancy came up. So, they had to recount the individual groups to tally with the body count. We had a real crackerjack in our group. He was onto all this in a flash. He is running for county commissioner. I gather he has quite a rep around town for being outspoken. His name is Gary Schmitt. Vote for him. County Commissioner. The othe point of order we are protesting., All of the undecided or uncommitted participants objected to the 15% viability. There were less than a hundred people there, and some of them may not have belonged there according to written rules. How did it go in your precincts and did you notice any of this type of bending of rules? I heard that in precinct 8209 they let people leave and instead of doing a body count, they counted ballots. We found our discrepancy in the body count over the tallies turned in by the groups. Paperwork and ballots werent guarded well in our precinct and one Obama supporter complained because all our registration info was left outside unguarded while we were balloting. It could have walked away. There would have been no records left. Keep in mind the NH recount is turning up discrepancies in most precincts. Check in please. Hope you all had a great time. We had two great groups, Kucinich and Edwards. We told the lobbyists for the other groups to just get lost. We were trying to get ourselves viable in some way and we did. HOORAY

To demonstrate how corporate control of media has an impact on our elections, look at the case of John Edwards, only recently one of America's most popular politicians.

How often do you see John Edwards on TV these days? Do you think that this is because he's in third place? You see the Republican third, fourth and even fifth-place finishers far more often even though they are receiving only half (or less) the percentage, and maybe a quarter of the numbers of votes, that Edwards is getting (and making a LOT less sense than John Edwards). But Edwards is taking on the corporate control of our society bluntly and frontally, and this is something that they cannot permit to be widely disseminated, so he's off TV, and pretty much out of the running because not because of his message, but because his message is being deliberately suppressed.

An even more damaged victim of this effect is Dennis Kucinich, a genuinely serious politician who has had a very effective gravitas-ectomy performed on him by the robber baron class.

So, the problem boils down to three factors:

1. Corporate control of laws, regulations, and information.2. Consolidation of wealth into too few hands to sustain consumer markets.3. An outflow of wealth without any durable benefit.

Every one of these problems is serious and very difficult and painful to solve. The difficulties are not only political. Effective and fair economic and industrial regulation will certainly result in economic dislocation as industries and individuals that have grown dependent on favor will suffer. Redistributing wealth more equitably, in addition to being energetically opposed by those with the power to mount truly formidable opposition, will hurt high-end consumerism on which many jobs depend. The steps needed to curb our trade deficits will be the most painful of all, involving reductions in energy and material consumption and the abrogation of various trade agreements, including a return to greater protectionism. This, of course, will be found offensive by our trade partners, resulting in retaliation.

Had we continued along the path that we were placed on by FDR, and that Kennedy tried to return us to, and that Carter and (to a lesser extent) Clinton again strived to resume, we would not be in this mess today. But we are, and there's no denying or ignoring it. Well, there's plenty of "denying or ignoring it" going on, but we harken to it only at our great and lasting peril.

won the Nevada Caucuses, hitting over 50 percent. Obama had 45 percent.

Edwards had practically nothing, with 4-5 percent thus far. Certainly if Nevada had a primary, his numbers would have been far higher; as it is, his paltry showing is a result of the quirky caucus system.

The way the system works, if you don't have "viability" in a caucus precinct, your vote doesn't count.

That's the way it was at my caucus today. At my precinct, there were 130 people there. Twenty people were needed for viability. The Edwards group needed just one more person to be viable. As it was, we had to have a second choice, which was either Obama or Clinton. Since I refuse to support Obama under any circumstances, I went to the Clinton side.

Obama wound up with six delegates, while Clinton had five in our precinct.

I will be a delegate, as will a couple of other Edwards supporters, for the county convention next month.